Trapped Into A Trap

There was a pit stop on the way to Las Vegas over the weekend. There was no need for gas, but I suppose it's forgivable to halt the march so long as someone needs the bathroom. I didn't myself. I could have stood to adjust my contact lens, but I'm not about to do that at some roadside bathroom. In any case, we stopped at some highway trap that perhaps doesn't quite ascend to the standard of infamous, but is more or less in the same vein.

As it is in Nevada, it of course has to be heavily steeped in a scattershot of space alien and redneck iconography. I was more receptive to such things when I was perhaps ten or twelve, but can do without a little grey alien in a cowboy outfit these days. There was also some manner of alien car parked out front and festooned in warnings not to touch the thing. I would not have, but wanted to very badly simply as an act of subversion.

The store had one or two things of real note. They had a whole line of beef jerky that was pretty good. There were samples of each, and they were tasty, although it's a real challenge to extract shred of beef jerky with big, awkward tongs. The store also had a more diverse than average selection of sodas, and an even larger range of hot sauces. I rather imagine that the sauces themselves were all the same, but one must fill the bottles with something in order to justify the tasteless but fanciful names and labels.

Now, the store itself was not necessarily the draw for that stopoff. I kept hearing from my friends, with whom I was traveling, about this giant thermometer. The very idea was ridiculous to me. I guess it's supposed to be amusing if not genuinely impressive, but I was just annoyed. There are certain devices that can do more by virtue of being larger. The world's largest umbrella could shield more people from rain than a regular one. The world's largest thermometer can do no more than one I might have in my pocket. It was lame.

Owing to a miscommunication between cars, we found ourselves needlessly killing time at this stop, and so that accounts for what seem an overly thorough account of something that I purport to not be fond of. I assure you that I will make no special attempts to remember the occasion or commemorate it beyond this writing. That level of enthusiasm puts me in line with the store's employees, if not all of my friends.